


400 beats

by aosc



Series: I gave you all my soul [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8263466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: It's whisper quiet, only gradually rising; a crescendo, a conclusion, to the event.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is the crackiest shit i have ever imagined for these two. i'm retroactively sorry. (not sorry). observe !! can be read as a standalone. post-canon. i just imagined it going along with the two other fics of igyams bc i wanted to work w a relationship that had been cultivated btwn them for some time. but it's definitely just as well a standalone piece. /end

* * *

 

He gradually wakes, punch drunk and blacked out with the sensation of his nerves lighting, fuses in circles and crescents going off beneath his skin. He is heavy, a real, singular weight – a constricted shape that he cannot map out.

 

He’s paralyzed, at first, due to fear or due to the poison, he can’t tell; there are whispers of voices rising in chorus to his left, but they blend together, become grey matter in the space of seconds. Seconds? The concept of time is sticky like tar. He falls out of it again. In and out, slipping through water, through oil. It’s easier some days (days?), some days it’s harder. He regains feeling in one leg, before it shortens out.

 

His elbow aches.

He grinds his jaw.

 

There are spots in his vision. He growls, but it rattles out of him, shortens his breath.

 

 

One day, his lungs collapse. Sacks of tissue and curves of muscle becomes a fallible mess inside of his ribs.

 

He knows Urahara’s there, on that day.

 

 

His narrative slides out of place. Or does it?

 

 

Cut –

 

*

 

To black.

 

*

 

“You’re not a straw weight player, you know.”

 

Grimmjow sinks deeper onto the hilt of his right crutch. He grits his teeth. “Can it, kid,” he snaps. Jinta, the target, squints through the light of the underground training room, at him, and pulls an unnatural grimace. Grimmjow flips him off, from where his left arm is supported on Jinta’s shoulder. His middle finger curls as to poke him in the cheek. Jinta pretends not to notice, anymore.

 

Feeling comes and goes, three months post the end of the battle. His nerves sizzle, putter, spark out, in the middle of sparring. It usually returns after an hour or so, but that’s the best Urahara can currently do, the man apologizes by. Good for jack fucking shit, is what he is, for that.

 

Jinta takes another few steps, slow and long, for Grimmjow to mimic. “The intervals are shorter though,” Jinta says, “Soon, I won’t have to drag you around until your circulation kicks up again.”

 

Grimmjow grunts. His right knee aches; the meniscus – pulled out of Yoruichi’s anatomical thesaurus – is only partly healed from the stress he’s put on it since the incident, given how many times he’s apparently torn it along the way. Not that he gives a shit about what a piece of fibrocartilage in his knee wants out of him.

 

“Woman,” Grimmjow had sneered at Yoruichi when she’d brought it up, “I pick cartilage outta my fuckin’ teeth after breakfast. You think I’m gonna let that little sucker stop me from movin’ around?”

 

Yoruichi had raised an eyebrow, declared, “Men and their vices,” and stalked out of the kitchen cum delivery space. Ururu had remained silent. Jinta had dozed farther off to sleep. Urahara – had been absent, as most days, holed up in his temp lab.

 

Tessai was still in Soul Society, banishment temporarily, or permanently, depending on how the politics were gonna lean after the clean up, lifted, and was aiding the rest of the Shinigami in the post–war rebuild.

 

“We there yet?” he asks, and hobbles another few steps, kicks through the limestone dust sawed finely, laid to rest on top of the long lopes of stone laid as a foundation of the training room.

 

Jinta rolls his eyes. Grimmjow can feel it through his shoulder. “No,” he intones, “We’re not.”

 

“How the fuck did Urahara build this by himself? For fuckin’ _Hirako_ , no less. That dude ain’t worth a dime, and yet, he got this shiny piece of faux underground desert, and in the name of pussyin’ out of a sweet power trip – whoever now wants to do that. A piece of faux desert that apparently stretches for fuckin’ _days_.”

 

“Mmh, sure is amazing.”

 

“Ain’t it? It’s almost like – “

 

“Man,” Jinta snaps, “Do you _ever_ shut up? No wonder your boyfriend isn’t here to pick you up by himself.”

 

Grimmjow growls. “Oi,” he snaps, and tears himself free from Jinta, “Shut the fuck up; who’d you think you’re talking to?”

 

Jinta hops out of the way when Grimmjow swipes for him. “Who do _you_ think you’re talking to? I’m your caretaker, dude.” His scowl breaks up into two sharp rows of teeth, like a fucking shark, sniffing bait. He waggles his eyebrows. “Besides – it’s never a sore spot if you don’t have something to hide,” he sing songs.

 

“It’s not a sore spot, you rat sized son of a – “

 

“Geez; just admit to the giant sexual tension colored elephant in the room. Nobody’s going to be betting any hard cash on you two getting together – the return of investment is that low.”

 

Grimmjow snorts. “What’s that color look like? And I ain’t got a problem with nothing but you calling anybody my so ‘n so. There’s no relationship. Na – da.”

 

“Hah. You’re such a fraud, Jaegerjaquez.”

 

Grimmjow rolls his eyes. “Yer caretaker sure never taught you manners,” he says.

 

“Neither did your _mom_ ,” Jinta shoots back.

 

“Classy is not the word I’m lookin’ for here.”

 

“What, like that word even exists in your vocabulary?” Jinta says, and dekes to the left when Grimmjow throws the cane after him. “Oi, that’s your _life_ _support_.”

 

Grimmjow smirks. “Looks like you could use some.”

 

Jinta flips him off, and rounds a boulder sharply to the left, disappearing out of view. His voice comes again disembodied after a few beats, leftover from Grimmjow’s invisible left flank. “Hey, man, we’re here!”

 

The slit of an opening across dimensions is already stretching wide ahead of them. The portal, bleached, purified rock erected like a mockery of the gates of Hell, already raised. Inside of its rural, slowly blinking eye is a space that has no color.

 

Grimmjow hobbles forward, to where Jinta has stayed, arm loose at his side to show that Grimmjow can grasp at his shoulder. The kid’s been his co–exist for about a month and a half, and when Grimmjow doesn’t want to stab his cane through Jinta’s cheek, they’ve managed to work out a system that means nonverbally inviting to grasp for him as a mainstay. He sinks down with half of his weight on Jinta’s shoulder. They coordinate their steps, moving measuredly forward.

 

“You gonna be okay in there?” Jinta asks.

 

Grimmjow hums. “Ain’t my first rodeo.”

 

“I didn’t ask that.”

 

“I know you didn’t, I’m not deaf. Yer not my mother, there’s nothing to worry about.”

 

Jinta snorts. “Who said I was worried? That’s disgusting.”

 

Grimmjow shoves at him. They’re timing it pretty well nowadays – his leg is returning, the sensation loping down from his hip to the pad of his foot. He eases off of Jinta, carefully masks the grimace of discomfort threatening to break on his face. He’s _not_ weak. He steps down on his left foot, carefully, carefully applying pressure to the sole, clenches the muscle in his shin, running a gash up into the back of his knee, the tendons stretching. It hurts, it’s not that – it hurts like a motherfucker, but he’ll take the pain before the disassociative state of not feeling half of his body at all.

 

He steps up to the Senkaimon. He’d rather use a Garganta, but, unstable worlds, and so forth.

 

“See ya later,” Jinta calls.

 

Grimmjow waves over his shoulder, and steps through.

 

*

 

Sunlight is particular to its universe, he’s learned: the needling, piercing light source of Hueco Mundo is thin and white. Meanwhile, the real world’s is yellow and a large, oval spot of warmth, usually perceived through a window. It’s unfiltered, and becomes tangerine, orange, auburn red with time.

 

Soul Society’s – and its interconnected spaces – light, is reiryoku purified.

 

It’s so bright when he steps through; sensation is a thing the memory quickly sheds, especially if it’s in discomfort. He can imagine the bleach white of Soul Society rising before him, but he can’t remember being blindsided, hit by how bright it is, even in its halfway state of concluding repairs.

 

Grimmjow scrubs at his left eye, and scowls into the blue and sun daylight.

 

“Identification, please.”

 

The voice is relatively pleasant, and comes from his immediate right. Grimmjow twists around. A Shinigami, black shihakushō neatly done in the waist, lined with untattered, unstained white, steps forward. There is nothing threatening in his poise, exactly – but a life of war hasn’t done Grimmjow any favors for him to be trusting towards these people. He raises an eyebrow. “You must be new to this,” he says, slowly.

 

The Shinigami tilts his head. He says nothing in response.

 

“Really? You’ve never seen me – this face, before?”

 

The Shinigami’s lips thin, marginally.

 

Grimmjow shrugs. “Suit yourself. Figures this place would really be slackin’ right now.”

 

“Sir – “ The Shinigami begins.

 

“Look, I ain’t got any of your flimsy ID crap, alright? I ain’t from here. Not that you’d have a hard time tellin’, if you were actually lookin’. Ya can tell Kuchiki to come ID me, if ya’d like. The 13th Captain.”

 

The Shinigami looks doubtful. “To let you pass, you have to present me some form of identification. The Jigokuchō is usually enough, if you are not dressed in your squad robes – “

 

“Okay, Shinigami, listen here,” Grimmjow interrupts, “Yer not listenin’ to what I’m saying. I’m not a runaway, I didn’t slack off on guard duty in any other world and come back lookin’ like this for escapism’s fuckin’ sake,” he gestures down himself, from the black sweater to the Levi’s and the flat soled sneakers, “I’m not. From. Here. Name’s Jaegerjaquez, and Kuchiki’s supposed to fuckin’ pick me up, to prevent people like you from _wasting_ my time. So quit _yapping_ , and get her on the – “

 

“Arrancar, please refrain from insulting the intelligence of my subordinates. Our camaraderie doesn’t stretch that far.”

 

Kuchiki appears at the elbow of the guard, who at least makes an effort to mask the jump he’s about to transition into. Grimmjow crosses his arms over his chest. “Nice of ya to show up, _Captain_ ,” he snarks. “Also, when did you hear me insulting his intelligence? Was only complaining about his ability to listen, far as I’m aware.”

 

Kuchiki rolls her eyes, refrains from replying. She turns to the guard. “Dismissed,” she says, but not unkind.

 

The guard salutes. “Kuchiki–taichō,” he affirms, and twists on his heel, practiced.

 

Kuchiki inclines her head. “Shall we?” she says.

 

They walk in silence. Kuchiki’s not the talkative type, he knows, and anyway, she wasn’t wrong. They’re not comrades – allies. Tentative, maybe, in the most literal sense of the word. But they’re naturally distanced to each other. Grimmjow still thinks, at times, of the time when he put a fist through her belly – of her straddling his abdomen, pressing a dagger down into the concave of his throat.

 

The 13th barracks were left relatively untouched by the battles. They’re on the edge of Soul Society, and serves as the gatehouse closest to the new setup of the Senkaimon on their end of the Dangai. The captain’s office is as lavish a building as the traditional builds go. The sliding door is a silently constructed mechanism, and the steps are glossy of bamboo and whet.

 

Kuchiki greets her subordinate officers as they go. Grimmjow keeps his thumbs in his front pockets, and passes the soldiers without comment.

 

She brews tea, in the small confines of the kitchenette, constructed as a small rectangular space just outside of her office. Grimmjow leans against a short wall that opposes another pair of sliding doors, these ones vying for the gardens at the back of the building.

 

“Very fine leafed Gyokuro,” she says, once she’s made him sit on the opposite of her desk, in her office. It’s placed center and snug in a tiny room, gifted with an oval window overlooking the perch of a hill, rolling down and into a wet, green garden. A large pond is situated just to the right, down a small ceremonial cliffside. “It was a gift from my brother.”

 

Grimmjow regards his cup. Ringlets of steam are curling from it. “Looks – nice,” he says, for a lack of any other respose. The situation feels alien enough as it is.

 

Kuchiki actually smirks. “This is how a civilized, tempered society has constructed the art of hosting meetings,” she says.

 

Grimmjow scowls. “Woman,” he says, “I wasn’t born an animal, or yesterday. It’s just – fuckin’ weird, doing this here. With you. Is all.”

 

Kuchiki shrugs, good naturedly. “I wasn’t born into this, either,” she says, “Neither was Renji. It’s God’s wonder that he’s still Nii–sama’s lieutenant, what with his absolute lack of manners.”

 

Grimmjow isn’t quite sure how to respond – this is familial, neutral – even good natured, conversation that you engage in with allies. This is not his scene. Nor his lines.

 

Though perhaps it is. The taught skin across his left hip twitches. Something goes off, a small pang of discomfort. He sinks heavier into it. This is not what he once was. “Look, Kuchiki: I know you ain’t doing this to make yourself feel better about anything,” he says. “And I don’t think anyone else’s requesting it either. I’m not exactly cozy with any part of the gang.”

 

Kuchiki regards him, from across the table. She slides her cup out of the way, and puts her palms, fingers entwined, to rest atop the surface. A curl of hair slips free from her shoulder. She looks at him, head minutely tilting. “Why do you think I’m doing it?”

 

“Hell if I know,” Grimmjow mutters, “Don’t remember you bein’ cool about a scheme, so I’m not sure that it is.”

 

Kuchiki doesn’t shift. “The Gotei will commence tomorrow morning,” she says, “Once in session, I will present to the rest of the captains, my new lieutenant. My choice will, for the first time, not reflect that of a collective decision made beforehand by the entirety of the captaincy rank. In other words – this has never been done before.”

 

Grimmjow leans back, straightens his back. “Kurosaki’s not endorsed, is what you’re saying?” he says.

 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Kuchiki shakes her head, lightly, “What I’m saying is that the – process, has not actually been a process. Soul Society is a very old institution. Certain aspects of its governing are somewhat, outdated. The election process is often painstakingly long, and unnecessarily complicated. By all means and standards, Ichigo has what it takes to be a captain–rank soldier. A lieutenant position is definitely within his capabilities; it’s just a matter of politics now.”

 

“Okay,” Grimmjow says, circling a finger as a means of interluding the conversation, “Pretend I know all of this already. What am I gonna do about it?”

 

“Like I said, that's not what I was implying. Jaeger – Grimmjow; have you ever considered military duty?”

 

Grimmjow stares at her. To her credit, she doesn’t find it funny, whereas he imagines he looks fucking ridiculous. The unsaid proposition is bizzare – forgive him. “I,” he says, eloquently. “I sincerely, beg yer pardon? Me? Here? Did you trip into a digsite and hit your head, Shinigami?”

 

Kuchiki opens her mouth –

 

There’s a perfunctory bang, that preludes the sliding doors being hefted aside. “Oi, Rukia, your new protégé’s stuck in some pond weed, you’d better go get – “

 

Ichigo stops, mid–sentence, as the door comes out of its place to reveal them both seated inside. He blinks, looks to Kuchiki, and back again to Grimmjow.

 

“Are you wearing Nikes?” he asks, the first thing out of his mouth, incredulous. “Honest to God Nikes _, here_?”

 

Grimmjow scowls. “The hell’s wrong with the shoes?” he asks.

 

“I – “ Ichigo says, then shakes his head, shedding the remainder of the sentence. “You know what,” he says, “Never mind the shoes. Why – “ he gestures inwards.

 

Kuchiki rolls her eyes. “Honestly, Ichigo, that pond is ceremonial. The training grounds are large enough to house two people engaging in combatal training.”

 

Grimmjow studies Ichigo, Shinigami robes parted, hair slicked. Zangetsu – its new shape, sharp and needled, thin rather than clunky and huge, hangs off of his hips. He looks to Grimmjow, again. He resists the urge to shudder – to give in to the familial spread of warmth, burrowing its teeth into his gut. They’ve been here – where moments trip off a precipice and unsaid things turn to fucking shit.

 

*

 

Cut

 

to –

 

 

He wakes up to disembodied hands clutched around a porcelain cup forcing, though gently, an odorless, tasteless slide of liquid down his throat. He barely keeps it down, feels like bile, though it’s not. He coughs it down, the final drops, and forces himself to sit somewhat upright, elbows supporting muscles in his abdomen and upper body that are useless with sleep – with poison.

 

“Fuckin’ hell, if ya wanted to kill me, now’s the time,” he croaches, the words mangled, scratched raw on his throat.

 

“Keeping that in mind for when you start bitching about how being bedridden makes you lethargic.”

 

Grimmjow peers through the dull, grey light of evening through curtains. Ichigo is parked on a chair to his left, back weighing into the far wall. The cup has been sat aside, by the pin leg. “Kurosaki?” Grimmjow asks.

 

Ichigo waves. “Present.”

 

“Well, if you’re here, that means yer side prob’ly won, so that’s another point in your favor, not mine.”

 

“Don’t get so excited,” Ichigo snarks. Grimmjow flips him off. He barely makes it; steadying himself on one forearm, whilst raising the other, is an unbalacing act that the physicality of him finds difficult to handle. He has to carefully scoot up, and twist himself so that he can steady himself up against the wall.

 

“How’re you feeling?” Ichigo asks.

 

Grimmjow shrugs. “Like I was mowed down by a fucking train. But I’ll live.”

 

Ichigo nods. “We all did,” he says.

 

Grimmjow snorts. “Wasn’t holdin’ my breath.” He thinks that if they didn’t know each other better – and there’s a fuckin’ laugh for you – he’d have been surprised at Ichigo’s lack of emoting irritation at that. But here they are, two wars later, wearing scars to show for it. He doesn’t suppose that it’ll get better.

 

“Urahara’s working on it – the antidote,” Ichigo says, breaking a silence that has descended upon them, put itself like a fine layer of dust on their current situation.

 

“I didn’t ask for his help,” Grimmjow replies, cutting off something that was never going to come.

 

“Does it matter if you did?” Ichigo asks – there’s a note of genuine curiosity in him, that Grimmjow has a hard time grasping. There is literally no point to aiding him – a runaway of Aizen’s faked empire. All things considered, an outlaw escaping Soul Society’s conviction. On the one hand, fuck that; he’s nobody’s to retain. But Urahara, outlaw himself or no, is firmly rooted to a spot within Soul Society’s ranks. He’s a weed that can’t be nestled out. The genius behind the madness, too. Fuck, Grimmjow doesn’t know, but there’s a grey area to how fucking easily it comes to these people to – help him. And every fiber in him screams that you. are. on. your own.

 

But he’s paralyzed from the waist down, feeling which flickers, goes out. And –

 

Ichigo looks up, meets his gaze.

 

Grimmjow sinks farther down on the futon again. There’s an ache in his thighs, and a breathlessness that stems from – from a place he can’t fucking name.

 

“You wouldn’t ask anyone, anyway,” comes Ichigo – _Kurosaki_ , again, and Grimmjow grits his teeth.

 

“Precariously high on that horse of yours right now, Kurosaki. Like you would?”

 

“You’re not a wanted criminal, Grimmjow,” Ichigo snaps, “So you can quit acting like I’m about to cure you and then throw you down Soul Society’s goddamn rabbit hole. I know one person who did that kind of shit, and that was a long time ago.”

 

He swallows on the words about to well up in his throat. Ichigo has stood from his slouch, tense, about to snap. This is their balance – assiduously on edge, splinter ready. Ichigo’s shoulders are squared, his back lifted up, rammed back. He looks as though he wants to take a step forward, that he’s pulling on something to will himself from stalking forward.

 

“You goin’ back there?”

 

Ichigo looks away. He shrugs, halfway. “Can’t stay here,” he mutters. It sounds like a sawed off sentence that’s a part of something larger.

 

“You know, that, after I rescued Rukia,” Kurosaki enunciates what he’s saying slowly. Clearly. “I wasn’t branded a criminal. Yet I fought my way through all of their squads together, just to get to her. A criminal. She was about to be executed. I was a fugitive, Renji was gonna kill me. Hell, Byakuya came close – even the old man Yamamoto came there, thinking that somebody was gonna have to finish me off. And yet, here I am. You know? An ally?”

 

Grimmjow thinks that he should be infuriated by the displayed level of naïvety. The absolute lack of understanding. That he should curl away, instinctively, how fucking dare he insinuate that Grimmjow’d want for –

 

He breathes, through his mouth, the cool, clear cut air.

 

Ichigo laughs. Short, barked – mirthless. “Doesn’t matter, I suppose,” he says. He’s gone, out of the room, letting a spearing of yellow light through the crack in the door, before he shuts it again, behind him, hard and a message given, received.

 

Grimmjow thinks that by him edging off the precipice, they, too, by consequence, are close to going out and over it.

 

*

 

Ichigo, almost imperceptibly, nods towards the far off training grounds. “I’m pretty sure my sparring partner got carried off, or eaten by the Kuchiki kois,” he says, as though a means of explanation.

 

Grimmjow can feel the pulse, a long forgotten muscle memory, twitching to life. He looks between the mirage of a spar, and Kurosaki. Back to Kuchiki’s vacated desk, which she has temporarily left to them and their devices, having been called out by the lieutenant of the 8th squad, Grimmjow hazards.

 

“You coming to me now, Kurosaki?” he asks, “Should’ve guessed you’d wanna fight me at fifty percent. That you’d think you could take me now.”

 

Ichigo raises an eyebrow. “I promise,” he intones, “That if you take me, in Nike knockoffs and denim, I’ll forfeit our battles. Forever.”

 

“Then I, promise you, Shinigami, that that’s a bet you’ll regret to have agreed to.” Grimmjow grins, and hoists himself up to standing. It’s a little wobbly, but he’s grown stronger – doesn’t need the means of aid as much as before. And, besides, this - there’s no force in the world that will stop him from sparring with Kurosaki, on _his_ home turf.

 

The training grounds stretch ahead of them, wide and white with finely grated sandstone. The hills curve up around them, its concave more of an arena than anything else. Grimmjow’s pulse is thudding against his throat, on his wrists; this is a spot in the world in which he can feel at home, no matter that it’s a world in which he is not at all at home. He shakes himself out – clenches his fists, rolls his neck, blinks sharply up at Kurosaki, who squares his shoulders up ahead, who never quite grins, never quite matches Grimmjow’s excitement, but whose fingers twitch towards his waist, towards Zangetsu’s hilt. Whose eyes become almost distant with the call for power, for the tide of raw edged reiatsu that squalls inside of him. Grimmjow knows that person; knows, better than anybody else, how to tap into the part of Ichigo that strikes, quick burst and lethal, cheeks crossed out with blood and hair clumped with matter and sweat.

 

Ichigo opens his mouth, and Grimmjow strikes before the first syllable has been realized in his throat. There’s no science to it. The part of him that transcends into motion is the most transparent part of him; he knows that Ichigo will see it coming. That the animal caught in the crosshairs, the wide eyed surprise, is a part of an act now, rather than a gut wrench reaction to something that comes from Grimmjow uncouth.

 

It’s easy to see where Ichigo has apprenticed beneath Yoruichi. She vaults around Grimmjow, strikes back where he comes forward, and darts left where he assaults her from once forward, once backward. Ichigo doesn’t match her practiced movements; he’s raw, whereas she’s polished, and has uncut power beneath his steps, whereas she has grace. Grimmjow’ll give her that; the woman is unrivalled.

 

It’s easy for Grimmjow because he, too, has sparred with her.

 

He matches Ichigo where he flickers out of view, and appears four yards behind Grimmjow. Grimmjow grins, and spins around, balance rooted in the pad of his forefoot, and pushes off. He’s got no weapon to extend, but he doesn’t need it. Pantera is a force always present within him, is the spirit he _harbors_. And she’s quick to strike, feral and nimble. He’s transitioned, halfway, into jags of claws, and extended molars, before he quite realizes it. How the bones crowd in his hands and how they extend in the feet, how the jaw lengthens, and the upper row of teeth elongate into fangs.

 

Ichigo brings Zangetsu out of its hilt in the moment Grimmjow knows that he’ll otherwise rip clean through his forearm, a defense mechanism the human part of him hasn’t shed; to protect the torso, the throat. Grimmjow’s clawed left hand hits the blade shrill, and rake down its flat side, screaming. Ichigo grits his teeth, and pushes off.

 

Grimmjow comes down on the soles of his feet again, knees slightly bent, neck craned. Ichigo’s begun to sweat again, a light sheen dusting the hollow of his throat, reflecting off of the skin of the bridge of his nose. He circles in a thin crescent. Grimmjow twists, almost leisurely, watches him plan, probably far ahead. “I’m impressed, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow smirks, “Never have I seen you plan ahead in a battle.”

 

“That so?” Ichigo says. His mouth thins, just slightly, in a wry tilt of smile. “Then you must not’ve looked very well.”

 

He strikes. Hard and fast.

 

Grimmjow bares his teeth, snarls low in his gut, and brings his hands up to parry Zangetsu. It’s a messy, non-deliberate parry, that leaves deep dents in three of his claws, and sends him fumbling backwards to find sure footing, forcing retreat. He scowls, and flickers, the Sonído thick, thick, in his legs, back a few feet. Ichigo remains. His sword hand is tilted forward, dipping into the ashy ground that hasn’t quite settled around them, yet. He tilts his head.

 

Grimmjow thinks of the child he met in Hueco Mundo. When he was still king. The child that trekked with him through the wastelands of the zone he made for himself.

 

That child’s grown up, he supposes. But he’s not fighting dirty, down on his knees, weakened and desperate. Not like he could be. Not like – they, should be. This is a friendly spar – one between comrades. Between –

 

Grimmjow takes a flickering few steps forward, putting everything into the Sonído steps he knows Kurosaki won’t have seen for a very, very, long time. He appears just, just before Ichigo. Breathes in deep in his space, reaches up with hooked fingers suspended just above his sternum. Ichigo’s not the savior of their collective universes for nothing – he gets Zangetsu up in the space between breaths, between when Ichigo notices what Grimmjow’s about to do, but also when he realizes that he’s too close, suddenly, for a sword to serrate the space between them.

 

Grimmjow looks straight, slightly tilted, down at him. Ichigo’s breathing has quietened, but still echoes, rumbles, in his ears, that have sensitized, developed the finely tuned edge of a predator. He pulls on himself, sucks in a stilted breath, and forces all of his instincts, screaming various things at him, to retreat. To wave the proverbial white flag in the face of something he realizes he’s been running like a chickenshit from.

 

Ichigo looks up at him. “Why’re you here, Grimmjow?” he asks.

 

Grimmjow snorts. “Beats me. That really the first question that came to mind, just now?”

 

Ichigo slowly, in a whisper of air that shouldn’t make Grimmjow shudder, lowers his sword. Allows for it to scrape, blunt force of the flat of the blade, against the length of his bicep. Grimmjow hears it, all too clearly, hit the ground. How the sand scratches against the burnished metal.

 

“I know why you’re here. I just don’t know why you’d ever come. Even if you didn’t know the principal base of why Rukia asked you.”

 

“It’s really impossible for you to go a day without discrediting my character. Heartening.”

 

Ichigo rolls his eyes. Grimmjow thinks of standing on a precipice, about to trip right off of the end, and falling into an abyss. Of nothingness. The starch black of a coma. Of a static buzz. Wet mornings in Karakura. The Kurosaki Clinic’s slippery roof. Kurosaki’s innately dumb, fucking inability to save his own ass before anyone else’s. Even if that someone, by soul, blood and coincidence is considered an enemy.

 

“I don’t give a fuck about why I’m bein’ dragged over here. I just came because I ain’t a fucking coward.”

 

Ichigo’s palm circles his own hip, fingers twitching, splayed out towards Grimmjow. There’s a sliver showing just above his waist, cool air settling on the balmy near–sweaty skin there. He can imagine the phantom of touch. Of Ichigo’s hand pressed against his sternum; the center, very center, of his ribcage.

 

“Never said you were,” Ichigo says. “Never that.”

 

Grimmjow huffs a short laugh, void of mirth. “I’ll sing your goddamn praises.”

 

“Seriously though. You’re here, because Rukia – “

 

“I’m here ‘cause Kuchiki thinks she can recruit the spoils of Aizen’s war and show the rest of the dinosaurs in this, _Society_ , of yours that they’re gonna have to modernize their thinkin’. I’m not a waste of brains. It’s smart, but to be crass - I couldn’t give less of a fuck about your internal affairs.” Grimmjow looks straight at Ichigo, “I’m here ‘cause if there’s anyone who’s a coward here, it’s goddamn well not me.”

 

Grimmjow - leans forward, unconsciously going up against Ichigo because they both -

 

Are -

 

meeting halfway, forever, in some way that’s either because of the fact that they’re equally fucked up, or because of some equal desire that’s been trampled down and quashed, that’s welling up and over the edge.

 

Grimmjow bites at Ichigo’s bottom lip until it fattens with blood, and Ichigo hums into his mouth. He runs his tongue over Grimmjow’s bottom teeth, and both his hands come to clutch at Grimmjow’s hips. Grimmjow breaths through his nose, and tugs on the short, wet hairs at the back of Ichigo’s head. He tilts his head back amicably, and breaks the kiss. Grimmjow chuckles, breathes into the sharp twist of where Ichigo’s jaw meets his neck, and presses his tongue flat against the spot.

 

Ichigo rolls his head towards his far shoulder, gently putting distance between them, when Grimmjow hears his breath going ragged, warm and short burst. “Funny,” he says.

 

“Wasn’t an expression of hilarity,” Grimmjow says. He straightens.

 

Ichigo meets his gaze. Dark, blunt gaze. “That’s what you came here for?”

 

Grimmjow raises an eyebrow. “Now you got a problem with it?” he says, “That’s cold, Kurosaki. I’m almost hurt.”

 

“Almost. Of course.” Ichigo doesn’t let up on where he’s still gripping Grimmjow’s hips – loose palms, thumbs pressing into his sides, making scripts that he erases, over and over. “Would you? Say yes, I mean?”

 

“Almost,” Grimmjow repeats, and thinks, in a state of repetition, a mantra building. It’s whisper quiet, only gradually rising; a crescendo, a conclusion, to the event. “Yeah. Maybe I would.”

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> and then they lived happily ever after. this is literally how this series is going to end; you're welcome to fight my brain.


End file.
